Salleh: No Provision In Federal Constitution Allows Agong To Sack Prime Minister

KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 – There is no provision in the Federal Constitution that allows Yang di-Pertuan Agong to sack a Prime Minister, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak. Referring to a hype regarding the one million signatures that the ‘Save Malaysia’ campaign was supposed to have received in support of its petition, Salleh said “there is very little His Majesty can do about this petition”.

“Of course, just to put on a show and give an impression that the Prime Minister has lost support, you can always get one million signatures and send these signatures to the Agong. But then the question would be then what? Will you demand that the Agong sack the Prime Minister even though that would be unlawful?,” he said in his blog sskeruak.blogspot.com, Friday.

Salleh said while people said that the government must respect and observe the Constitution, those opposed to the government must also do the same thing. He said the Constitution very specifically says that the Member of the House who commands the confidence of the majority of Members of the House gets to become the Prime Minister.

“In that same spirit if the Prime Minister loses the confidence of the majority Members of the House then he has to step down as Prime Minister. This means not just the Prime Minister but the party that the Prime Minister leads is ousted and the party from the other side gets to form the new government,” he added.

“However for that to happen the Members of Parliament from the ruling party have to cross over to the Opposition. Other than that, His Majesty’s hands will be tied. There is no provision in the Constitution that allows the Agong to sack a Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s own party has to do that (like in the case of Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim) or MPs from the Prime Minister’s own party have to cross over to the Opposition (like in the case of Perak Menteri Besar Nizar Jamaluddin),” he added.

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